WILLIAM H. COLEMAN, general farmer and stock-raiser, running the large cattle farm of 320 acres, and also owner of nearly 600 acres in the precinct of Philadelphia, all in Cass county, has lived in the county for thirty-two years, has always been engaged as a farmer and has always been quite successful. He began here as a poor man, and worked for $10 a month for the first four years, and after that began to farm on the Calef farm, which he has since run as a renter, and out of his savings he has purchased the large farm of 600 acres which he also runs on his own account, in connection with his rented farm, making nearly 1,000 acres that are under his control. He has been a hard-working man and has made all he has since he came to this county in 1860.He was born in Westphalia at Menden, in Prussia, Germany, in 1840. He was reared in his native country, and after he came to this county he attended the public schools through the kindness of his benefactor, S. L. Calef, whose place he has worked on since 1860. He reveres this kind gentleman and his wife as he would his parents, and his long residence on their farm show what their opinion is of his honesty and faithfulness.
Mr. Coleman is the son of Gotlieb Coleman (spelled in the German Kuhlmann), and the latter came to the United States in 1870. He made his home with his son, William, until his death in 1886. He was then eighty-two years of age. He was a good old man and an active member of the Lutheran Church. He had married a German lady who lived and died in her native country, being only thirty-two years of age. Her maiden name was Mary Markman. She left six children at her death, of which William and a brother Henry, now a married farmer in Virginia precinct, this county, are all that are now living. William and his brother Henry came to the United States when young and single, coming in the spring of 1860 from Bremen, Germany, to New Orleans in a sailing vessel, Mary Margaret, with 636 passengers on board. After a thirty-nine days' voyage, they landed in New Orleans and came up the Mississippi river on a steamer to St. Louis, and from there to Beardstown, where they have both since lived, and have become good and successful farmers and reliable German citizens.
William was married in this county to Nancy McLin, born in Morgan county, where she was reared and educated. She has lost her parents, the mother dying in Morgan county, at the age of forty, the father in Cass county, aged sixty years, having always been a farmer by occupation.
Mr. and Mrs. Coleman are the parents of five children, yet living; four are deceased; those living are: Ellen M., wife of Perry Davis, a farmer of Virginia; Charles E., at home helping on the farm; Edgar, John and Arthur, all at home on the farm.
Mrs. Coleman is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Coleman is a sound Republican. He has been very active in local politics, and once ran for County Commissioner, running ahead of his ticket several hundred votes. He and his wife are good, hard-working people and are justly entitled to the success they have attained.
Biographical Review of Cass, Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois, Biographical Review Publishing Co., Chicago, 1892, pages 270-271.
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